Heart
by The Honor Lord
Summary: "You wanted me to feel pain? You should know something about me, Cyclonis. Something you should know about anyone. To feel pain, you need a heart and the heart can only break so many times before it completely…" His eyes seemed to glow brighter with a maniac edge to them. "Shatters."
1. Chapter 1

AN: Years ago I read a Cyclonis/Stork fanfic and I tried to convince myself I could never ship it (unless it was crack) and I failed. Miserably.

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She nodded at the guard and he opened the door with a touch of a crystal. As she walked into the prison cell, she watched as the hunched figure in the corner stir at the click of her boots. It didn't turn around and she smirked, raising her staff. Thrusting it, she forced the figure to turn around. Even in the dim red light from outside, it was apparent that the figure was not human but, as the green skin indicated, a Merb. He didn't say anything, didn't even appear to be bothered and examined his nails, scrunching his nose at the dirt under them. He began picking at them, not even acknowledging her.

"You should show me some respect," she said eventually. The small smirk on his face made her feel as if she had lost some kind of game in speaking first. She narrowed her eyes. "You know, at a word from me, I could either sentence you to endless torture until you would eventually stop begging for death because you would believe you were in hell itself, or I could release you and never bother you again."

The Merb finally lifted his gaze to meet hers, slowly lowering his hands and straightening his hunched back. Dramatically twirling his hands and bowing, he said, "I… apologize. Master Cyclonis." Cyclonis's nostrils flared.

"Do _not_."

A flick of the staff and he was thrown up onto the ceiling.

"_Mock me_."

Another flick and he slammed onto the floor.

Cyclonis expected him to groan or whimper in pain, but despite the bruises starting to form on him, he merely sat up, coldly watching them, the purple hue looking odd on his green skin. He looked up at her, tilting his head. "You expected it to hurt me?" he asked, standing up. "You wanted me to feel pain? You should know something about me, Cyclonis. Something you should know about anyone." Cyclonis gripped her staff tighter at the absence of her title, but allowed him to continue. "To feel pain, you need a heart and the heart can only break so many times before it completely…" His eyes seemed to glow brighter with a maniac edge to them. "_Shatters_."

They held each other's gaze for a few beats before Cyclonis broke the silence again. "Of all of you and your _friends_." She waited for a reaction and got none. She continued. "I would expect you, the Merb, to be the last one to talk about things such as matters of the heart," she said, adding a snide tone to the end. He chuckled. "What is so funny?"

"What makes you think that they would ever have time for philosophical thoughts? Even Piper, with all her books and reading, thought only of crystal theories and concepts." He shook his head. "None of them ever did appreciate any of it," he added quietly, no longer addressing her.

Cyclonis watched him begin to mutter to himself, a poker face covering the fact that she knew he was right. She waited for him to make the next move, but he was much more adept at ignoring than she was at being ignored. "Ask me why I'm here," she said, her tone clearly implying an order rather than a request.

"Okay," he said, without argument. "Why are you here?" Despite his willingness, she felt like he still got the best of her.

"Why don't you try guessing?" she said.

He shrugged. "I'm the one asking the question," he said. "What would I know?"

A muscle in her jaw jumped, betraying her frustration. "Fine," she spat. "I came to ask you something, _Stork_." He didn't respond to the utterance of his name, despite the odd resonance it had with her voice. "I need you to become ambassador for Cyclonia to Terra Merb."

Stork looked at her calmly. "No."

She smiled. The conversation was finally going the way she planned. "I thought you'd say that."

"Of course," he said, nonchalantly. "You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise." Walking over to his poor excuse for a bed, sat down on it. "The only question is, what else is there? You obviously wouldn't come all the way to the dungeons to ask me something you knew I'd refuse without more." Folding his hands and crossing his legs, he looked more like he was at a business meeting than being at the mercy of the empress of Cyclonia.

She smirked. "You're very good at this, Merb." He inclined his head in agreement. "But I'm afraid all I have to offer is your freedom and these." She reached into a pocket in her cloak and tossed something at him. He caught them, knowing exactly what they were before she had even pulled them out, clutching them to his chest. "The Condor is yours," she continued, as he fingered the keys. "I give you my word that nothing has been touched on it. We have left it as we found it."

Stork raised his head, still holding the keys. "Did you really think that I was going to take this bait?" He swung the keys around his fingers, his eyes fixated greedily on them. In a split second, however, his expression turned into pure hatred and flung them as hard as he could at her. "Because the Condor is _nothing_ to me now."

As she caught the keys, she sighed. "I was hoping you would."

"No you didn't." His face was blank again. "I know it wasn't the offer that was going to be the motivation. It's the retribution. I told you already that you need a heart to feel pain." His eyes hardened. "And at some point the heart will be broken so completely that it becomes impossible to repair. And you know as well as I do where I learned that from.

"The first time my heart was ever broken was when I fell in love. She was the most beautiful Merb I ever saw, her skin the colour of poison ivy and her lips the taste of bitter herbs. I gave her my heart, put it in her hands and she crushed it, running away with someone else. _A human_.

"They say the first time hurts the most, but _they_ aren't me. I picked up the pieces, sewed it back together and it was brand new again. The second time hurt more than the first. My parents left my brother and me, telling us we were nothing to them, worthless. Which would have been fine, because I hated them as much as they hated me, but not my brother. My brother yearned for the love that our parents never gave us and in the end, he threw himself headfirst into the Wastelands, believing he was useless.

"The same day, your dear grandmother sent out Cyclonians to invade my terra and I fled, following my brother into the Wastelands in hopes that he had somehow survived the fall. I searched for years, holding the pieces of my heart together in vain. At some point I chanced upon the Condor and I made it my home. During my time there, I eventually acknowledged that he really was gone and for a long time I stayed cooped up on the Condor, barely eating and living, trying to piece together my heart again."

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, clearly reliving the memories in his own mind. He let loose a shudder; whether or not it was intentional or not, Cyclonis didn't know nor did she care.

"Then _they_ appeared. Literally fell from the sky. The three of them, still young and still naïve despite losing their terra and families because they had each other. I couldn't understand how they did it, so I stuck with them, helped them along their travels. Somewhere along the way, I became a part of them, became a part of their family. I could put my past behind me and my heart was whole again, despite all the repairs, all the mending. I felt at home like I had never done before and I thought I could spend forever with them."

Suddenly his eyes opened, the yellow glow of them terrifying in the dark and Cyclonis stumbled back a step. He lunged at her, his fingers wrapping around her neck. "And then you had to come along and ruin it all," he growled, slowly tightening his grip. Dropping her staff, she clawed at his hands, rasping and trying to breathe. In that moment, the thought of calling for help didn't even occur to her. "You ruined it _all_. I could have been happy but you couldn't let that happen could you?" Pushing her back, she slammed into the wall, the sound alerting the guards outside that something was wrong. They peered inside the cell, looking concerned. Cyclonis waved them away, coughing, and they hesitantly went back to their posts. Stork scoffed, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Congratulations, Cyclonis. It turns out you do have a heart. But you completely shattered mine."

With those final words, he turned around and sat back down in his corner. Cyclonis watched him, waiting for him to do something else. After a few seconds, she accepted his inactivity and exited his cell.

Before leaving the dungeons, she muttered to the guard, "Put him in the most comfortable room in Quadrant C and make sure everything is provided to him." The guard nodded, clearly confused. "If it's mind games he wants, mind games is what he'll get."

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AN: tbh I have no idea where I'm going with this. I don't know if I'll ever finish it, or whatever. I just... feel like posting it because...

_why not_


	2. Chapter 2

AN: It's been a while, hasn't it? And this chapter is super short as well. Also, it's really nothing. In fact, this whole fic is going no where. There is no plot. It's mainly just moments between Cyclonis and Stork. I have a vague idea of the direction I want to go with this but who knows. Not me.

Also, I'm sorry if the quality is worse than the first chapter, I can't be consistent. Ever. Wow this fic was a really bad idea on my part...

* * *

Merbs, like any other cold-blooded creature, can survive a fairly long time without eating. One meal can sustain them for weeks on end. However, while Merbs share a few biological functions as reptiles, its exposure to humans and other humanoids has made eating three daily meals a part of Merbian culture. But by no means have they lost their inherent ability to survive on very little.

"I heard you haven't been eating your meals."

Stork blinked. "Of course I haven't." His mouth stretched into an eerie smile. "I'm on a hunger strike."

Cyclonis smiled. "Of course." He tipped his head at her. She walked over to the window, looking as if she was gliding with her cape swirling on the floor around her. She placed a hand on the glass, looking out at the red sky. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she muttered, without turning around. "Nowhere else in Atmos have I ever seen such perfect scenery. The sky is a marvellous colour, don't you think? And the little towns and cities all below, such a brilliant system. Invented by one of my ancestors, of course."

"I suppose it is," Stork answered, still sitting cross-legged on the bed. "Have you ever seen Terra Merbia?" The silence that followed gave him his answer. "Not many have. Its reputation of natural disasters scare most off. But if you've ever seen it on a good day, which happens about once every few months…" he trailed off.

Cyclonis turned around. "Tell me more," she said.

Stork's eyes, which had been closed, flew open. She kept a straight face but congratulated herself in finally saying something that jarred the Merb. "I never thought that the empress of Cyclonia appreciated beauty."

"Surprising, isn't it?" She floated up to sit on the windowsill. Crossing her legs at the ankles, she leaned back. "Go on then."

Stork closed his eyes again. "The skies were often red, like Cyclonia's, but that was only due to a crystal and a sophisticated system to warn the population of imminent threats. Which was often. But on the odd days when the sky was tinged with the warning signal, it was a beautiful brown-green colour, like the colour of a perfectly hot swamp bath. When those days happened, all the Merb kids would run out onto the streets and instead of cowering in fear, we would let loose and run and scream and laugh all we want without fear that there would be an earthquake or a storm." He sighed. "We could forget about all our problems and fears… and we all had a lot." He shook his head, chuckling. "Merbian childhood is not known for its peacefulness."

"Neither is Cyclonia's," she cut in. "Or at least, for an heir to the Cyclonian throne."

Stork's eyes opened, slowly looking over Cyclonis's face. "No, I didn't think it would be," he said. "No one is born to be a tyrant."

Cyclonis grinned. "Perhaps not. At least I wasn't. Would you believe I was an innocent child just a decade or so ago?"

"I would. Not others though."

"No, not others." Her fingers began playing with the hem of her cloak. "It's a pity I grew up this way. I wanted to be a Sky Knight a long time ago. I thought with my intricate knowledge of crystals and my intelligence I would be undefeatable. Of course, in a twist of fate, I wasn't born to be a Sky Knight, but born to rule. And you know, despite it all, I was a great leader. I mean, look at it." She gestured to the window behind her. "I was the youngest Cyclonian leader, empress or emperor, and yet here I am with all of Atmos at my feet. Something no one else has done before me."

"But you lost yourself along the way."

Cyclonis slowly turned to look at him. "No, I was lost a long time before that." With that, she drifted off the windowsill and left the room, leaving Stork to mull over what he had just learned about the young empress. Flopping down on the bed he sighed. He took a deep breath and sat up quickly. He had smelled something like sand cakes. He looked around the room and found a plate of lopsided-looking sand cakes on the windowsill where Cyclonis had been sitting. He chuckled and began eating one. They weren't quite as good as Piper's, he supposed, but at least she tried.


End file.
